Look on my works
by Yarrie - Water Master
Summary: OR The Dangers of Having a (Maybe) Boyfriend Who is Smarter Than You. In which Izaya appreciates Western literature, Shizuo is confused as shit, and Shinra doesn't know anything either. Semi-established semi-Shizaya. Two-shot.


In which Izaya appreciates Western literature, Shizuo is confused as shit, and Shinra doesn't know anything either. Semi-established semi-Shizaya.

BECAUSE OZYMANDIAS AND IZAYA AND YES.

* * *

**Look on my Works **(or **The Dangers of Having a (Maybe) Boyfriend Who is Smarter Than You**)

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When Shizuo finally got back from work a little after 2AM after his Friday night shift, he had been completely ready to crawl into his bed and sleep til the weekend was over. Maybe even longer. Hell, maybe even forever. The thought was actually pretty tempting: no more bullshit excuses from assholes who obviously spent their last dime on alcohol, no more dumbass doctor friends trying to play matchmaker, no more fur-coat bastards ruining his life...

Unfortunately, as usual, the fucking flea had other plans for him. As he demonstrated quite plainly by jumping on Shizuo's bed and poking his grumpy blonde counterpart with the blunt edge of his flickblade.

In response, Shizuo...grunted. Once. Then twice, when Izaya refused to stop. The fact that he hadn't half-strangled the flea for pulling a knife on him (_half_ being the key word, now that the two of them had come to a sort of _understanding,_ courtesy of their mutual doctor friend) was proof of how tired he was. "Go. Away. Now."

"Shizu-chan." Izaya shuffled around and pouted so hard that Shizuo could practically feel it being transmitted through the air. "I wanna do something."

"Then go do somethin' and leave me'lone," he muffled through the pillow.

"Let me rephrase," the flea replied, in the most annoying pompous tone ever. "I wanna do something and I can't do it without you, so you're going to have to get _up. _I'd like to get to it sometime in the next century."

He groaned. "Then you can wait til next century, asshole."

Izaya sighed. "Of course. The protozoan doesn't understand sarcasm. How could I forget, silly me." He prodded Shizuo even harder with the switchblade, actually poking holes in the pajamas. "Shizu-chan. Shizu-chan. _Shizu-chan_. Shizu-chan. Shizu-chan,_ I'm pregnant_!"

His eyes flew open and he jerked upwards into a half-sitting position. "THE FUCK?!"

Izaya nodded serenely. "Gotta thank Shinra next time. That actually worked." Then, cheerfully, he pulled out an insanely colorful box wrapped up in the shiniest paper Shizuo had ever seen. "Look, Shizu-chan," he cooed.

He glared. "You're not pregnant," he said flatly, staring at Izaya's flat, skinny belly.

The flea rolled his eyes. "Superb deduction, my dear protozoan. Now, can we get to the present? Please? Pretty please?" He batted his eyelashes dramatically. It actually worked, sort of, because the flea _did_ have uncomfortably pretty eyelashes.

He eyed the gift warily. "That for me?" he asked finally.

"No, silly," Izaya said wryly. "It's for me. That's why I'm here, letting you see it." He pushed the box forward slightly.

If possible, he was even more suspicious now. "...what is it?"

"No idea," he chirped with a stupid flea grin on his face.

Shizuo growled. "Then I'm not openin' it."

"Shizu-chan, what makes you think I'd let you open _my_ present?" Izaya's grin widened, "I wasn't being sarcastic, you know. It really _is_ for me."

He glanced at the window behind Izaya. If he weren't so fucking tired...he flexed his hand slowly.

Izaya gasped dramatically. "Don't even think about it, Shizu-chan. I didn't come all the way here to be thrown out of the window! I think I still have some glass in my hair from last time!" He pinched one of the black strands and squinted at it pointedly. "Shizu-chan is too rough~"

Shizuo snorted. "Then why're you still here?"

"Because obviously I _like_ it rough," Izaya said, looking at Shizuo like he was stupid - which was probably an honest interpretation of Izaya's feelings about Shizuo, actually.

Shizuo gritted his teeth and slammed a hand on the top of Izaya's head, shoving him face down into the sheets.

Red eyes, half-hidden by the angle of his face to the bed, glanced up from under Shizuo's palm. The present was safely tucked under his arm. His snickers were barely muffled by the bedsheets.

"Shut the fuck up, flea," he said, when it became obvious that Izaya wasn't going to stop laughing.

In response, Izaya somehow slipped under his hand and bounced back on the mattress. After the bed stopped shaking, he folded his legs under him and sat seiza-style on the corner. "Shizu-chan isn't too bad at catching people," he announced. "But he needs to work on making sure they stay caught."

"How 'bout I just kill you next time?" Shizuo growled, itching for a cigarette.

"No. Bad Shizu-chan." Izaya squeezed his lips together until it looked like he was smiling but he really wasn't. "Don't make me punish you."

The idea of Izaya punishing him was so absurd he just snorted and shook his head.

Izaya kicked his feet like a child having a tantrum - not a bad analogy, all things considered. "Shizu-chan!" he complained in an oddly sing-songy voice, "I'm serious! Don't make me punish you!"

"Like you could," Shizuo said. "I'd kill you first."

"Like you could," Izumi threw back at him, smiling slowly. He had stopped kicking about.

Shizuo clamped his mouth shut and shrugged awkwardly because - fuck, it was _true_, and that didn't bother him as much as it should have.

"Now, Shizu-chan," Izaya dragged the present back onto his lap with two of his long, slender fingers, "Let's get back to my present. That's why I came to you, after all!"

"The hell do you want me for? It's _your_ present," he grunted, eyeing the box warily.

"Nothing, really, but I wanted to show you because it's so pretty. I mean, look at the ribbon, isn't it nicely wrapped? I haven't gotten any secret admirer gifts in a looo-ong time~"

He was already growling halfway through Izaya's first sentence. It was pure instinct. Izaya was like a constant stream of bullshit, and it usually saved Shizuo a lot of time if he just assumed that Izaya was about to insult him when he had _that_ look in his eyes. By the end, he was growling for a different reason altogether, snapping, "_What_ secret admirers?"

"Oh," Izaya waved him off, "Just people who think I'm pretty. Strangers, sometimes. Raira academy alumni, sometimes. Otherwise, just random clients here and there."

Shizuo scowled. "So...this happens a lot?" It wasn't jealousy that he felt, not exactly. More like...angry disbelief. He had been obsessively chasing the guy since they had been high school classmates, how did he never notice...?

Izaya shrugged. "No more than you'd expect," he replied lightly. "I don't discourage them when they pay attention to me, but very few of them have the guts to give me anything in person. For the most part, they just don't have the self-esteem for it." He mimicked the voice of a teenage girl. "I'm so ugly, I'm so fat, I'm so stupid, he'd never pay attention to someone like me, why would he? I wouldn't deserve him anyways."

Shizuo stared at him, at a loss for words. "Seriously?" he finally managed. "They think _they're_ not good enough for _you_?"

Izaya actually smiled, an odd expression for his face. "Humans," he said simply. "Aren't you glad you know better than that, Shizu-chan?"

"Somebody has to," he muttered.

Izaya laughed. "But! For what it's worth, they're completely right! I'd never pay attention to any of _them_." He prodded Shizuo on the collarbone with a secret little smirk.

Shizuo seriously didn't know what to say to that, especially since Izaya was practically straddling him on the bed, apparently to keep him from lying back down.

Luckily, Izaya didn't seem to expect a reply. "Okaaay, enough chit-chat! I wanna open this." He flipped it over and started picking at the tape that held the wrapping paper together.

Shizuo snorted. "Give me that."

A sharp glare. "No. You'd ruin it. I want to tape it up again after I'm done, so that I can send it back."

He stared blankly. "And...why the hell would you do that?"

"To send a message," Izaya said mildy, "that if they really want to give me a gift, I'd prefer something useful. Like a new switchblade. Or a new cellphone. Or blackmail on somebody I've been itching to discipline."

Shizuo couldn't really tell at this point if Izaya was actually serious about the blackmail thing, but he had long since realized that Izaya drew a very firm line between his personal life and his professional life - and Shizuo had absolutely no place in the latter.

The fact that he had (sort of) come to terms with who Izaya _was_ didn't mean that he was comfortable with what Izaya _did_, though. "I don't care how useful it is," he muttered. "Blackmailing is just...wrong."

"Not really," Izaya said, absently. Most of his concentration was on picking away the tape. "If people didn't do things to be ashamed of, then there'd be no such thing as blackmail. You can't blackmail an honest person."

"It's not about being _honest_," he muttered, feeling just a touch bitter. What he wouldn't give to be able to erase some of the shit he had done as a kid...as a teenager...maybe even as an adult. "Just - people make mistakes. Let 'em be."_  
_

"No can do," Izaya said, with a strange little half-smile on his face. "Really. No can do. Do you realize how much harder my job would be if I had all of your morals? My oh my, it would be _so_ hard."

Shizuo gritted his teeth at the mocking tone.

"Relax, Shizu-chan," the flea prodded his chest insistently, "I'm kidding. With the kind of people I have for clients, not even your morals would apply."

"That doesn't make me feel any better," he muttered, scowling. "Just so you know."

"But you see, Shizu-chan, there's nothing I could say to make you feel better." Izaya started fiddling with the tape again. "Unless you're giving me permission to lie to you...?"

He narrowed his eyes. "No," he replied flatly.

"Well, there you go, then - aha!" He peeled off the wrapping paper successfully and held up a cardboard box. He lifted the top and grinned effervescently. "Awwww, somebody did their research," he practically cooed.

"Ha?" Shizuo narrowed his eyes and grabbed the box, turning it over so that he could see the...book. Seriously? Izaya was cooing over a _book_? He puzzled over the title - it was in English, and he had never been good with languages - until Izaya snatched it right back.

"My book! You're going to tear it," he hugged it to his chest almost protectively.

Shizuo hadn't even considered ripping the stupid thing to pieces, but he certainly did now. "Alright. You saw it. Aren't you going to send it back now?"

"Postal service is closed, anyways," Izaya shrugged. "Might as well read it." He pulled the book out and ran his hand down the cover. It looked like leather. Must have been expensive. "Actually, never mind. I'm going to keep it!"

Shizuo scowled. Izaya's exaggerated glee over the stupid book was starting to grate on him. "What kind of book is that, anyways?"

"Do you know Percy Bysshe Shelley?" The foreign consonants rolled off Izaya's tongue naturally.

Shizuo stared at him blankly.

"Of course you don't," Izaya sighed, with a look of annoyance. "Uncultured brute."

He glared. "Well, fine, you tell me. Who is he?"

"One of the best English poets of the Romantic period." Izaya had adopted a patiently exasperated tone.

"...You read Western poetry?" he asked disbelievingly.

Izaya rolled his eyes skyward. "Your cultural literacy is...I swear, it's practically negative. Yes, I read Western poetry. It'd be a damn shame not to know about _half the world's literature_. I bet you don't even know anything about Eastern poetry, do you?"

Shizuo would have hit the bastard for that comment, even though it wasn't exactly wrong, but a more pressing issue occurred to him. "Wait. Is he...I don't know, is he one of your favorite writers or something?"

"Or something," Izaya said agreeably.

"How many people _know_ that?" he asked, feeling suddenly bothered that he had been completely ignorant of this side to Izaya. And then he got annoyed at himself for even feeling that way, and it was like a vicious cycle of self-fury.

"Oh, not many." Izaya tilted his head thoughtfully. "In fact, I'm a little impressed. It would've taken some looking to find out about my illicit love for English poetry~"

An itchy sort of anger burned in his chest. "So who was it?"

"Who was what? You've got to stop being so vague, Shizu-chan."

"Who sent you the book?"

"Oh, I dunno!" Izaya grinned at him. "Secret admirer, remember?"

"Bullshit. You're a fucking informant. _Who, Izaya?"_

Izaya sighed. "Shizu-chan, honestly, why would I tell you? You'd pummel his face in, and that's a big no-no if I want to get more free gifts." He held it up to the light admiringly.

Shizuo glared at the stupid shiny thing with an expression of utter loathing. The worst part was that Izaya was right - he really _did_ want to beat up whoever it was. Izaya was - not _his_, but at the very least he wasn't anybody else's.

Izaya patted his arm and gave him a cool smile that revealed nothing. "Don't worry, Shizu-chan. I'll make sure that he knows how close he came to dying by your hands."

He wasn't sure whether to be...touched by what was obviously meant to be a soothing gesture, or furious that Izaya was being so flippant about the whole thing. "Send it back," he said flatly.

The smile tightened. "No," Izaya said. "Do you _see_ this book?"

Yes, he saw the book.

"Do you see how beautiful it is?"

No, he didn't see that.

Izaya sighed at the growing look of darkness on Shizuo's face. "You are utterly hopeless." He flipped the book open and seemed perfectly willing to let the conversation end there.

Shizuo was seriously tempted to yell at him and throw the book at the wall or something. Finally, he settled for pushing Izaya onto the other side of the bed and muttering, "If it's that good, read it to me."

"You wouldn't understand it," Izaya told him dismissively.

He glared at the stupid flea. "Then explain it."

The slender body occupying half of his bed straightened out. "Hmm. A challenge, to be sure." Before Shizuo could get angry at the implied insult, Izaya nodded shortly. "Okay. Let's see...we could begin with Ozymandias."

"With...what?"

"Ozy...man...dias. "

"Oh. Okay," Shizuo replied, not the least bit enlightened. He squinted at the page. He could distinguish the big O in the title, but the rest was in an odd script font that he found impossible to decipher. The paper was yellow-ish and looked more like cloth than anything else. It would probably tear like a spiderweb under his fingers. He was tempted to try.

As if he was completely ignorant of the direction Shizuo's thoughts were headed - _highly unlikely_ - Izaya cleared his throat and began to read. "_I met a traveller from an antique land..._"

Shizuo wasn't expecting the sudden flood of English, but he quickly settled back, just listening to the rhythmic flow of Izaya's voice. Not for the first time, he realized that Izaya sounded much different in English - sharper somehow, more masculine. It wasn't better or worse, just different.

"..._who said, __two vast and trunkless legs of stone_ s_tand in the_ _desert_." Izaya had half-closed his eyes. He was practically reciting from memory. "_Near them, on the sand...__Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown_ a_nd wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command_ _tell that its sculptor well those passions read,_ _which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things._" He touched the edge of the book and looked at Shizuo to make sure he was paying attention before continuing, "_The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed - a__nd on the pedestal these words appear...__"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: __Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" __Nothing beside remains._"

There was such a long pause that Shizuo wondered if that was the end of it, but then Izaya kept going. Softer now. More thoughtful. Shizuo had the sudden, intense wish that he _did_ understand English.

"_Round the decay o__f that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,_" Izaya had lowered his voice to a gentle murmur, "_the lone and level sands stretch far away._" Then Izaya slipped back into the easy vowels of Japanese to murmur, "Hmm...I think I'll paraphrase for you."

Shizuo was relieved. "Yeah?"

"A traveler is telling you about the things he has seen. He talks about passing two enormous stone ruins in the desert that are fashioned into legs...but the rest of the body is missing." His finger moved down the page serenely. His voice was soft, oddly poetic. "Nearby, you find the ruined statue's head. Its face is twisted into a cold sneer. The expression is so lifelike that it's obvious how often the sculptor had to experience it." He paused and frowned. "Can I do that again? I think I dumbed it down too much. It doesn't sound right."

Shizuo scowled. "Then stop dumbing it down."

Izaya gave him a look. His silence was probably more meaningful than anything he could have said.

He scowled even more.

With a slight grin, Izaya began again. "Okay. Back to the poem. We were at the part about the sculptor...The traveler reads the inscription on the pedestal: _My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works, and know the meaning of despair_. But if you were to look at the desert, you'd see nothing there...nothing but wind-swept sand."

They were silent for a moment. Then Shizuo said, quietly, "What's the point of that, then?"

Izaya glared at him. "Uncultured brute! Seriously!" he huffed.

Shizuo scowled. "But what _is_ the point? I mean, obviously nothing's left...so? What then?"

"That's the end of the poem," Izaya said, looking affronted. He resembled a peacock fluffing up his feathers indignantly.

"No, I mean - why did the king put that on his statue?"

Izaya sighed. "It's...a comment on humanity. No matter how proud you are of what you've done, it won't last forever. Think about your brother, for instance."

Shizuo narrowed his eyes. "What about him?"

"He's famous right now, no? But after a couple hundred years, how many people are going to remember him?"

"...not a lot, I guess," he admitted, faintly disgruntled about the specific example Izaya had chosen. "Unless you really like movies."

"Shizu-chan, in a few centuries, people probably won't even watch movies anymore," Izaya said patiently. "DVD players would be in _museums."_

Shizuo furrowed his forehead.

"I know that's tough for a protozoan brain to take in, though," Izaya added.

"Shut the fuck up," he said. Any other time he would have beaten the crap out of Izaya for a comment like that, but the mood was...off. Stupid poem.

"The point is," Izaya said, "humanity is so stuck in the present that it can't tell how insignificant its accomplishments will be in the future."

"...wait, so why the hell do you like this poem?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Doesn't it kind of insult you? In a couple hundred years, nobody's gonna remember _you_, either."

The silence was so total and complete that it finally occurred to Shizuo that maybe, just maybe, Izaya might not like the way he phrased that.

"Uh - "

"Shizu-chan," Izaya clapped the book closed and made to get up, "sometimes I really wonder about you." His tone was icy.

"Flea," he said, not sure what the hell he was supposed to do now. Should he...apologize? What would he even be apologizing _for_?

"Clearly I am wasting valuable time on you, when I could be doing much better things with much better people."

Okay, _that_ was pretty fucking insulting, because he and Izaya might beat each other half to death but it was _never_ a waste of anybody's time. "Hey, flea - " Shizuo was half scrambling out of the bed now. Izaya just happened to be much faster, though - and he was out of the room with barely a sound.

The clock on the wall was incredibly loud, all of a sudden. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

"...Well, fuck."

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TBC!


End file.
